Special Collections Faculty Receive Humanities Center Awards

Special Collections faculty members are involved in two initiatives supported by grants from the Humanities Center at the University of Vermont (UVM).

Chris Burns, Manuscripts Curator and University Archivist, is one of five faculty members who received a Lattie F. Coor Collaborative Fellows grant for a proposal called “Visualizing Ideas in the Digital Humanities.” According to an announcement from the Humanities Center, the group is “exploring ways of applying visualization tools, with a particular emphasis on representations of spatial patterns and processes, to humanities questions.” The group is currently investigating classroom, research and digital library applications on campus. To help build support for these efforts, they plan to hold a colloquium on digital humanities in the fall.

The Humanities Center recently launched a new program to support the creation of multi-disciplinary collegial networks and interest groups. Jeffrey Marshall, Director of Special Collections, and Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian, received support to create the UVM Book Studies Network. Faculty from Art and Art History, History, English, and the Libraries will explore related teaching and research interests that focus on the book. The group will meet three times this semester to identify shared themes in the study of the book and identify areas where more support for teaching and research is needed. Participants will explore how other institutions define “book studies” and propose a working definition for UVM. They will also consider the potential for a formal book studies program at UVM.

Map created by historian Nicole Phelps, one of the Lattie F. Coor Fellows, for a project on the history of the U.S. Consular Service from 1789 to 1924.